Form Factor Roulette

On : April 19, 2019

This
projection from Cisco research confirms the obvious, yet raises some
questions. The obvious is the
spectacular flip as internet traffic switches from PCs to smartphones. That’s a trend we can see in our daily
lives. The questions arise around the
lateral projections for TVs and tablets. As connected TVs replace first
generation flat screens one would expect an increase in internet usage. These data show a decline. And with tablets,
one would expect them to gain secondary usage from the move to mobile although
the study authors may have assumed a decline in the form factor’s sales. Logic: If you have a big connected TV and
little connected phone, you may not see a need for the in-between product. Source: Cisco

Chinese Consumer Fail to Get the Message

On : April 18, 2019

In
spite of surveys that measure consumer sentiment directly, probably the single
best way to track consumer sentiment is by watching the growth of retail
sales. If consumers are buying, they are
confident. And the Chinese consumer have
been buying through the winter noise about trade wars and its assumed negative
effect on the Chinese economy. They
apparently have not gotten the message.
Source: www. Tradingeconomics.com; National Bureau of Statistics of
China

You Can’t Take the Human Out of Automation

On : April 17, 2019

AI
is merely a tool and like all tools it exists for humans to use effectively or
not. The message from Emily Ketchen,
HP’s regional head of marketing, Americas, is that automation without humanness
is less effective. AI can ferret out the
signals of customer intentions, but if there is no human intervention or there’s
the wrong intervention, chances for a sale are reduced.

Intent
behavior may be signaled “when customers make purchases, look for products
online, click on banner ads or leave comments about a brand on a social media
site.” But the signal alone has little
value if it is not acted upon. It’s time
for the humans to read the tea leaves – to know where in the buying cycle the
potential customer is and to respond in kind. Earlier in the process suggests
one response while later in the process requires another.

Ketchen
says its has been HP’s experience that when the right response delivers a “personalized
ad or landing page combined with humanness, response rates jump an average of
20 to 30%.” By contrast, if the response
in not timely, if the response takes “more than 10 minutes [it] can decrease
the odds of qualifying that prospect by up to 400%.” Source:
AdExchange

A Chinese Turn About

On : April 16, 2019

In
an apparent turnaround, Chinese negotiators in the trade talks are not
objecting to the US complaints about “IP theft, forced technology transfer and
cyber hacking,” According to Larry
Kudlow, US Economic Advisor and lead negotiator in these talks, the Chinese are
willing to talk about the issues for the first time. That’s a major change and it could be the
enough to break the stalemate that has mired trade relations between the two
countries for many years.

For
those of us who want to sell into China, this is a significant turn, one that
could lower the competitive tensions between the countries. Should corrections become part of an
agreement, it could have long lasting effects for the exporting future. As they say, the devil will be in the
details. Source: CNBC

Strap In!

On : April 15, 2019

In
Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” the spread of viruses is used to describe
the way in which quiet social trends build below the surface until they either
die off or they begin to snowball into massive social shifts.

Automation
has been one of those slowly growing forces that has been changing the world
quietly for decades. Example: the
American car industry in the late 1970s produced and sold about 12-13 million
cars a year with about 600,000 workers.
Forty years later in 2015-16 about 17 million cars were produced and
sold with about 400,000 workers.

It
was that slow automation burn that punched through in the US election of
2016. Worker discontent with
disappearing jobs – blamed on migration, but mostly fueled by the inexorable
force of automation – changed voting patterns and changed the direction of the
US in the world.

What’s
the future? At the World Economic Forum,
IBM’s Chair, CEO and President Ginni Rometty said, “I expect AI to change
100 percent of jobs within the next five to 10 years… as analytics and
artificial intelligence change job roles at companies in all industries.” If she’s half right, Rometty is seeing AI and
data analytics as the tipping point for what has been described as the Fourth
Industrial Revolution. Strap in, its
going to be a bumpy ride unless you’re on the correct side of revolution. Source: CNBC; Bidwin analysis

Three Mobile Trends for 2019

On : April 12, 2019

The move to mobile by consumers is naturally pulling
advertisers along. But the mobile medium
is very different from other digital media because of its small screen
size. The first and most obvious, smart
phone ads were banners. As the audience
gets more attuned to the medium, banners are losing their appeal, a fact that
drives the first trend: more engaging content including short videos.

The contrast between revenue sources for casual games verses
mid-core & strategy games is clear.
Casual games make money from in-app purchases while the more
sophisticated mid-core & strategy games see more revenue from
advertising. There is no indication from
the numbers that the 70-30 split in casual games is likely to change, but the
trend for the mid-core & strategy games flipped decisively toward more
advertising in last year’s second half.
Expect the trend to continue.

As the trend toward in-app advertising evolves, app
developers are going to need a higher level of support from the ad delivery
system. They are going to require two
key things: first, more transparent reporting that provides better audience
targeting and market insight and second, better, more integrated creatives that
engage their players without putting them off. Source: Adotas

Follow the Money to and from China

On : April 11, 2019

Consumer spending on mobile
games globally was $109.5 billion in 2018. The three biggest contributors to
that huge total were China, the US and Japan.
While Chinese game companies are raking in the money from consumers, giants
like Tencent are taking their winnings and investing in Western gamers like
Jagex and Outfit7. As China spreads its
presence among the game playing generation across the world, it is making its
cultural mark beyond its borders in the same way US movies and music has made
its cultural mark globally on an older generation. Source: Mobile Marketing

Retail Ad Spending Grew 40% in the Second Half of 2018

On : April 10, 2019

A breakout from Smaato of ad
spending by category for the second half of 2018 shows that 72% of all spending
came from two categories: retail and media.
All other categories combined to deliver the final 28% of dollars.

The big story was the 40%
growth in retail spending in the second half of the year compared to the frist
half. Total retail went from 35% to 49% fueled by online marketplaces Amazon and
Walmart, which together accounted for 28% of all ad spending. A lot of that
second half spending in retail was likely related to the holidays. Source: MarketingLand

China’s Manufacturing Makes a Comeback

On : April 9, 2019

Last year’s Manufacturing
Index ended in decline, which rolled into January. The last two months have reversed the decline
to a point where March turns in the best number since July of last year. Every time a sector of the Chinese economy is
counted out, it seems to recover in relatively short order. This comeback was fueled by growth in new
orders – mostly exports. They were strong enough to overcome slight declines in
purchasing activity, finished goods inventory and slight increases in input
costs.

According to Zhengsheng
Zhong, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group, a subsidiary of Caixin
manufacturer’s are seeing a positive future, “Overall, with a more relaxed
financing environment, government efforts to bail out the private sector and
positive progress in Sino-U.S. trade talks, the situation across the manufacturing
sector recovered in March.” Source:
China Caixin,CNBC

The Past is Prologue

On : April 8, 2019

The industrial revolution of
the 19th century was humming along as titans of steel, energy and
railroads staged intramural battles for market supremacy unencumbered by
government regulation. Monopolies developed
and workers where stomped. The response
to out-of-control heavy industry was anti-trust and child labor law and unions.

Today we are seeing the end
of the laissez faire digital revolution. Pushed by ad fraud and hate speech the
IAB and Mark Zuckerberg are calling for a combination of voluntary and
government rule-making to bring under control the forces of this generation’s unbound
revolution.

It’s the way it has to
work. New industry has to be left alone
to grow in its beginning. But, after a
period of years, it will over step and it will always get ugly
before the forces of restraint step in.
Now is the time for our revolution to be reined in. The hope is that we
reach a balance between voluntary discipline and government regs without
tipping toward over-regulation. Source:
Bidwin analysis